Pretty much this. The weapon itself is pretty plain (but good fit with tier 1 if you're mogging), but as a standalone weapon it doesn't mean much.

The quest itself, the sacrifice Eris Havenfire made, you yourself being the beacon of Light to smite, but more importantly to heal and protect the weak, or die trying. Eris was our priest hero, the only one we've had (Tyrande is a druid with a bow, gtfo), and even dead from before we ever get to her, that is felt. It's powerful.

As a weapon on its own, it's meaningless and shouldn't come back as a freebie, or a "Here's your skin from DMF" kind of deal. No, gtfo. Seriously, gtfo. But! I wouldn't mind Benediction coming back as solo-content like the Warlock Felfire quest will likely be. It needs its context. This is the only thing Priests had, it needs to be preserved in that regard.

And to you priests who were lucky enough to go through the chain, no one can ever take that away from you, but there are people who don't care about the quest and only want the weapon because they are in love with the way it looks.

I don't really care either way if they bring it back, but if I had to choose with making people happy by giving them something or making other people happy by not giving something to someone, I'd go with the former.

"So my advice is to argue based on the reasons stated, not try to make up or guess at reasons and argue those."
Greg Street, Riot Developer - 12:50 PM - 25 May 2015

I'm thinking it has to do more with weapons that were available in the past to blacksmiths that were Weaponsmith only related as they weren't made available at Cataclysm like the other professions got when they unmerged stuff.

At least that's what I'm hoping for. Wanted a bunch of those models for mogging, but was armorsmith in TBC for the tanking gear =/

This, I came in late BC, (about two months after Black temple came out) and I never learned a BS spec. I thought I'd wait to see what they added in wrath, only to see it was removed. Now I can't learn the specs even though I had the ability to when I first started playing.

I live a life of shattered dreams and broken promises. I kill... To live, I kill. You don't want any part of my world. I am nothing but a ghost... Without a place to haunt.

And to you priests who were lucky enough to go through the chain, no one can ever take that away from you, but there are people who don't care about the quest and only want the weapon because they are in love with the way it looks.

I don't really care either way if they bring it back, but if I had to choose with making people happy by giving them something or making other people happy by not giving something to someone, I'd go with the former.

If it was added as a quest reward to go through it again, people who want it will do the quest whether they care or remember it or don't and just go for the instant mogging.

I'm not saying keep it away from new players, at all. If a person doesn't give a damn for an old dungeon but really wants a weapon skin, they'll farm that dungeon time and time and time again regardless of context until they get it. To these people, what burden is a single quest? To people that actually care, whether they did it the first time, or more importantly to those that didn't, having this offered to them, it's a pretty big gain.

I honestly don't see a real downside. You either yawn through it and get your skin, and forget you ever did it, or you're left with one of the only bits of Priest awesomeness to ever happen in the game. Why would you take that away from people, just for the sake of giving somebody else a free skin? Because if I had to choose between giving people content, or not giving people content just so that some people who won't care about said content would skip it if they could, I'd go with the former.

Can't agree with you there, Benediction is one of the best staff models for the priest theme (unless you're okay with looking like 95% of the other priests in the world with tier 5 on a stick). Maybe the model is plain, but the detail is nice. I'll definitely be grabbing it for mogging if they ever add it back.

Blizz should hire you as a developer. You obviously have a perfect understanding of their intended direction for the game.

---------- Post added 2012-12-27 at 11:59 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Laephis

If they resurrect proper chain quests for class weapons again, that would be fantastic, but give people something new to work toward. Respect the old stuff, don't just rehash it.

Hahaha. Very funny. Have you played WoW in the last three years? If Blizz were to bring back a Benediction questline, it would work like this:

1. Your trainer (any trainer) gives you a quest to go to Blackrock Mountain and speak with Lothos Riftwalker. Your trainer will teleport you to Lothos when you are ready. (Don't try actually traveling to Blackrock Mountain - you need to speak with Lothos in a phased version of Blackrock.)

2. Speak to Lothos, who will teleport you deep into the (empty) Molten Core, where you must speak with some NPCs and loot a chest to acquire The Eye of Divinity. Looting the Eye starts a quest. The Eye will teleport you to the Eastern Plaguelands when you are ready.

3. Teleport to the Eastern Plaguelands. (Don't try actually traveling to EPL - you need to be in an phased version of EPL to complete the Benediction quest.) Once there, you will talk to some NPCs to complete your quest, then you will get two new quests, one to heal an NPC to full health, and another to kill 10 skeletons that are attacking the NPC. The NPC can't actually die, but still be careful, if you pull all 10 without wearing at least a few blues, you might run out of mana and have to kill them by meleeing them to death, which will take a while.

4. Once you have killed the skeletons and healed the NPC you can turn in the quest, which will reward you with a coupon for One Free Benediction or Anathema, which you can turn in to your class trainer in Orgrimmar or Stormwind to receive your choice of Anathema or Benediction. You new staff will be and epic of iLevel 532, and look exactly like one of the classic priests staves.

(Optional extra steps.)
5. You can read the blue post explaining how the new Anathema or Benediction doesn't change into it's companion weapon in order to maintain the value of the unique accomplishment for those who completed the quest when it was current content.

6. After a great deal of complaining by priests with the 'new' Benediction or Anathema that they're effectively trapped in a given spec because that can't change their weapon, Ghostcrawler will explain during a Q&A that allowing Anathema/Benediction to swap back and forth would be 'very technically challenging' but that the developers are seriously considering adding that functionality in a future patch.

7. Several posters on the official forums point out that Benediction/Anathema transformation was already written into the initial item when it was introduced in vanilla. They are promptly banned from the BattleNet forums and come here to complain, where they are repeatedly both attacked by posters who support Blizzard, telling them to, "quit bitching or quit the game" and praised by other posters who will claim that this, "proves the whole game sucks now, and that subs will drop by at least a million because of this."

I understand Blizz wanting to re-include the great weapons and items from vanilla, but those who got it at the time would be extremely miffed that everyone can just pick it up. I think there would be an absolute uproar if it did. Maybes introduce a sister staff to benediction or an item linked to it, but not the actual thing.

2) Even if we do get a way to get Benediction again, what would it matter? Best healing weapons are almost always maces, so we'll be carrying maces around until weapon restrictions are removed from transmog.

2) Even if we do get a way to get Benediction again, what would it matter? Best healing weapons are almost always maces, so we'll be carrying maces around until weapon restrictions are removed from transmog.

Transmog sets? Not all Priests are running around with a mace equipped you know.

6. After a great deal of complaining by priests with the 'new' Benediction or Anathema that they're effectively trapped in a given spec because that can't change their weapon, Ghostcrawler will explain during a Q&A that allowing Anathema/Benediction to swap back and forth would be 'very technically challenging' but that the developers are seriously considering adding that functionality in a future patch.

7. Several posters on the official forums point out that Benediction/Anathema transformation was already written into the initial item when it was introduced in vanilla. They are promptly banned from the BattleNet forums and come here to complain, where they are repeatedly both attacked by posters who support Blizzard, telling them to, "quit bitching or quit the game" and praised by other posters who will claim that this, "proves the whole game sucks now, and that subs will drop by at least a million because of this."

I don't think this should return, fair enough some people get it, but the people who actually bothered to get it at the time will have the prestige removed from their lovely golden staff. Don't bring it back!

I don't think this should return, fair enough some people get it, but the people who actually bothered to get it at the time will have the prestige removed from their lovely golden staff. Don't bring it back!

With the item being removed at the start of Cata, there is no prestige to it. Now, if they removed it at the end of vanilla then its a whole different ballgame.

I, unfortunately, have an Eye of Divinity sitting in my bank. I didn't get a chance to explore the quest line before Cata hit, and subsequently found out the NPC I needed to talk to had been removed from Azshara. I keep holding onto it in the hopes I can one day use it, but that's probably unlikely.

With the item being removed at the start of Cata, there is no prestige to it. Now, if they removed it at the end of vanilla then its a whole different ballgame.

This is a very fair point you raise indeed. I wish everything available in a expac would be removed by the end of it so people can't faceroll their way to getting it and the things people worked hard to earn would keep their prestige.

a good plan to re-introduce benediction would be to bring it back... but blizzard doesnt tell anyone, and they suppress any datamining of it (or add it in right before the patch goes out or after PTR closes), and make the new quest-line start off some random mob/NPC in the middle of no-where (pref hidden in an outdated expac)

that way barely anyone will find out about it until a month later and it'll still be sorta rare!

Last edited by Jawless Jones; 2013-01-12 at 01:55 PM.

Originally Posted by Zombiebob

I'm still waiting on someone to tell me where all these people that suddenly care about Warrior balance were during Cataclysm when they were blow up dolls with plate armor on.

Originally Posted by cutterx2202

Stop complaining to solve your lack of ability, and start reading and practicing to gain ability. Stop trying to bring people down to your level instead of striving to raise yours.